Women's Art Register


The Women’s Art Register is a national artist-run, not-for-profit community and collection in Melbourne, Australia.

Founders

The Women's Art Register was established as a “Museum without walls” in 1975 by a group of women artists including Lesley Dumbrell and Erica McGilchrist, and the then directors of the Ewing and George Paton Galleries, Melbourne University, Kiffy Carter and Meredith Rogers. It began with one hundred women artists contributing slides of their work and was housed and administered at the Ewing Gallery. In 1977 the Register obtained funding to prepare photographic slides of women artists’ work and to photocopy articles on women artists from back numbers of art magazines within Australia. In 1978 the total collection was moved to Richmond Library where it remains today.

Work

Since 1975 many women have contributed sets of slides of their artwork, along with paper documentation, articles and ephemera. Articles about Australian women artists in the print media have been continually collected, collated and filed for access by the public. In 1978 the first catalogue of holdings within the Women’s Art Register was published. An updated version of the Catalogue was printed in 1999.

Publications

The Register published its first Bulletin in 1988. The Bulletin has kept the members informed about art events, news and provided analysis by peers. A website was launched in 1995.

Exhibitions

1988 Celebratory dinner hosted by the Women's Art Register in honour of Judy Chicago at the Royal Exhibition Building
2004 Exhibition: Genetics Women's Art Register members exhibition at Horti Hall
2015 AS IF: 40 Years and Beyond Celebrating the Women’s Art Register